Pages

Opinion

Organized residents in Virginia are shouting down planners, engineers and government officials at meetings of the Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission. Their angry-mob demagoguery is in opposition to preparations that the district wants to make to respond to an almost certain rise in the sea level over the next few decades.

The rise in sea level will result from global warming and therein we find the principle objection raised by the opponents: They don’t believe that global warming is taking place, and therefore believe that the costly and inconvenient infrastructure modifications and other changes are a waste.

While it might seem like a bunch of white farmers don’t have anything in common with African-American urban people, the Missouri Rural Crisis Center farmers love going to church in the city a couple of times a year and the members of Kansas City’s St. Mark Union Church always welcome us with open arms.

I had looked forward to the visit, which was yesterday, for a long time, and the rest of the group shared my enthusiasm. Maybe we all look forward to it because we have everything in common.

If it weren’t for the entertainment value, I’d be pleased that Texas Governor Rick Perry is foundering in the Republican presidential race. After all, Governor Perry, who is in an unprecedented fourth term as chief executive of the nation's second-largest state, still might get the Republican nomination for president. If that happens there’s no telling what the voters might be fooled into doing. Just look at how far George W. Bush got.